


i wouldn't ask for what i didn't need

by captainangua



Series: carry on codas [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Eileen Leahy, Canon Compliant, Dean Winchester Has Mental Health Issues, Dean Winchester Needs to Use Actual Words, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Episode Fix-it, Established Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, F/M, Gen, Grieving Dean Winchester, Jack Kline as God, M/M, POV Sam Winchester, Resurrection, Suicidal Thoughts, Traumatized Sam Winchester, look i basically just all-a-dream it which counts, look this is just a giant familial hurt/comfort vibe, not another finale coda, yes this is a rescue from the empty look i haven't done one yet i wanted to join in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28093818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: Dean’s scowl deepened. “I was alright with it. I told you to let me go -”“Yeah, and we make our own choices now. And I chose to see that was fucking stupid.”*No peace for Dean, and no Cas waiting for him in Heaven.  They'll have to figure out a happy ending the hard way.
Relationships: Castiel & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy & Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: carry on codas [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024549
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i WISH i could stop myself writing codas. Anyway... more out soon i clearly have no restraint about fixing this finale in every scenario i'm able to conceive.

Sam had watched Dean die more times than he’d done almost anything.

It still wasn’t something he’d gotten used to. In fact…

“No,” he growled, still looking at his brother’s slack, empty face. They’d said they’d be normal now, that they’d let things happen as they came up – but this wasn’t something Sam could live with.

(He remembered hearing himself say “I’m not gonna let you die, period.” He remembered reading a note left in Dean’s writing, “Sammy, let me go.” He remembered begging the Archangel Gabriel for the chance at one more Tuesday, one more Wednesday.)

It wasn’t even all grief driving him to stand to his feet – some of this feeling was rage, Sam knew, recognising that fire in him like an old enemy, an old friend. Dean had looked almost peaceful, almost accepting of it all.

The _dick._

It was probably an accident, just an awful coincidence in this new life not ruled by a story. But Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that Dean had let this happen. He’d been putting on a good face of it. But he’d put a good face on it when he’d been bound for Hell, too. Sam should have been watching him better, he should have known –

Sam wiped his eyes roughly and headed out the barn door. No, no regrets. He was fixing things.

*

Dean didn’t jolt awake – he came to slowly, suspiciously. When his eyes stopped moving on Sam’s smiling face they narrowed suspiciously.

“… _Sam_.”

There was no question to his voice – only accusation. Sam couldn’t bring himself to care, or to wipe the grin off his face.

“Oh _please_ ,” Rowena said, brushing the barn’s dust off her dress as she stood up. “Don’t look at him like that. You were _hardly_ dead _. Hospitals_ work more impressive miracles every day.”

“…What did you _do_.”

“Dean,” Sam said, kneeling down beside him again. “We really didn’t have to do much.”

“But.”

“Seriously. I’m not even sure you _died_ -died.”

For a moment, Dean looked grief-stricken, like Sam had just told him he’d brokered another demon deal. Then he mustered up a smile for Rowena. “My brother tearing you away from your duties, Your Highness?”

“Oh, I’m happy to help,” Rowena said, leaning down to pat Dean on the cheek. “Anytime. But if I ever call…”

Sam rolled his eyes up to the barn ceiling. “I really don’t see it working.”

“You know nothing about Hell politics, Samuel, and bless you for it. Being able to cart out a former Knight and “boyking” of Hell still carries some currency.”

Slowly Dean met Sam’s eyes and carefully shook his head. Sam stifled a laugh.

“Thanks again, Rowena,” Sam said. “Now we need to find those kids and finish the job here.”

"No rest for the wicked, I guess," Dean grumbled, and got to his feet.

*

They didn’t talk much on the drive home. Sam broke first, sometime after the third cassette tape, which was a sign in and of itself. Dean rarely showed how badly he needed comfort or control over his life – the cassettes meant something.

“It’s not that I’m not going to let you go at all,” Sam said. Dean grunted and continued to stare at the dark road ahead. “I will – I can. It’s just… that was just stupid, Dean. Rowena was right, if we’d been near a hospital even -”

“But we weren’t near a hospital.”

“Well, no. But that didn’t mean there was nothing I could do. We basically just healed you up and resuscitated you. It wasn’t -”

“Don’t. Do not tell me that wasn’t a big deal.”

Sam sighed and clenched his jaw. Dean was clearly going through something, he should probably just leave it alone – But he’d spent too long, too many years, being put through the wringer by his brother by doing too much, by not doing enough.

“What is your problem?”

Dean’s scowl deepened. “I was alright with it. I told you to let me go -”

“Yeah, and we make our own choices now. And I chose to see that was fucking _stupid_.”

“I was happy, alright? Cas was alive and I was gonna see him, and you were there -” His brain seemed to cut off feeding words to his mouth, which paused in an “O” shape that might have been comical if his eyes didn’t look so sad.

“…except you weren’t. You weren’t dead to meet me on a bridge because you didn’t die. So, so Heaven isn’t fixed and Cas isn’t -” He swallowed and seemed to force his face back into stoicism. “Cas is still gone.”

Sam continued to look at his brother with increasing concern. He’d had his suspicions, but Dean _had_ been doing better.

Right?

“Cas saved you,” Sam tried slowly. “He’d want -”

“ _I know what he wanted_ ,” Dean growled. Then the anger, the energy, that had briefly possessed him seemed to leave, and he looked lost again.

They were both quiet for a moment until Sam brought up the courage to speak. “Thought you said we owed it to everyone to move on, keep living.”

“Yeah, well that was a whole load of crap.” Dean looked up and for a moment Sam missed the pretence, wanted Dean to paste on a smile even if he didn’t mean it. But he forced himself to keep looking. Maybe he owed his brother that.

“Stupid.” Dean muttered. “ _Of course_ they’d say Cas was fine. It was _Heaven_.”

A few moments of Dean holding his breath he lashed out and bashed at the steering wheel, the wheel that he always told Sam to be more careful with. And in the middle of the empty highway he slammed on the breaks and brought the Impala to a stop, gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline and staring sightlessly out the window.

“…Dean?”

Slowly, Dean breathed out. Then he restarted the car. “’m fine, Sammy,” he said, chilling Sam to the bone. Because he hadn’t been so sure in years that Dean was nowhere approaching “fine”.

*


	2. Chapter 2

Eileen was in the neighbourhood.

Somehow, despite everything, they still needed to keep putting excuses around their meetings, around what they were to each other, like it would help protect them both, shield them both if they didn’t talk about how real it all was becoming.

Dean smiled more around Eileen than he had with weeks of just Sam and the dog, but he didn’t even muster up a single bad joke about Eileen staying in Sam’s room for most of the weekend, so he wasn’t fooling Sam. But it did ease the stress a little. They’d still barely spoken, other than one blazing argument about going out on another hunt, which Dean had found and Sam refused. The argument had started when Sam said he wasn’t going to let Dean go either, since he still wasn’t convinced Dean hadn’t gotten himself impaled partly on purpose.

“We’re not doing jobs again until you start getting dressed in the mornings.”

“Oh, and you just get to make those decisions for me now, huh?”

“You’ve done it for me before.”

“I’m not _suicidal_ , Sam. Especially since -” Dean had clamped his mouth shut.

“Well then what? Because you’re not alright. I know we’ve been put through the wringer our whole lives, but we’ve finally got a chance at being happy, at doing what we want. So, what do you want? You were talking about getting that guitar, about looking into that job -”

Dean had shook his head at the ceiling, like he was appealing to Jack to break his interventionist rules and shut Sam up for him. “I’ll get there, Sam, I will. I just – I can’t have what I want, alright? So I might as well be out there helping people, doing what I’m good at.”

“No.”

“No?”

“You wanted to stop with the resurrection routine? Great, let’s stop with all the self-destructive coping mechanisms first.”

Dean had left Sam alone for a day after that. A few times, Sam had convinced himself that Dean had snuck away to take on the hunt himself, and became almost more worried when he realised he hadn’t.

And now Eileen was here and Dean was continuing to stay out of the way.

Sam had told Eileen he was worried about his brother, but that was all. Apparently, that was enough for her to start worrying about Dean herself, as Sam found the second night of her visit, when he woke up to an empty space beside him in the bed. Funny, how quickly he was getting used to having someone there.

After giving in to the terrible impulse to flick his eyes up at the empty ceiling above him, Sam breathed out slowly and swung his legs out of the bed. Assuming a nightmare might have woken her up, he wandered along to the kitchen, knowing now that it was her habit to sit with a hot drink when she wasn’t able to sleep. He’d be happy to join her.

(He _was_ trying not to cling, not to be overprotective. But he’d never been allowed to keep anything this good, and a lifetime of bad luck had turned him into an anxious wreck.)

When he heard Dean’s voice, Sam stopped in the corridor and listened, not entering the kitchen yet.

“…I guess I wish he knew that. Before.”

“I’ve lost people before,” Eileen said after a few moments. “My first love actually -”

Sam had heard some of this story before, but it still felt like an intrusion to be listening to both of them in this moment. He didn’t move.

“We ended up in a vamp nest. He got me out, but couldn’t get himself away. It was my birthday a few days later and I – I found this gun that he’d got me in his things. He knew I thought it looked pretty. I used it right up until I died. I know now what I felt about him, but I never told him.”

“Cas -” Dean cut himself off. In his position against the wall, Sam bit down on his lip. He hadn’t heard Dean mention Cas much at all since his most recent resurrection. “The thing that made the Empty take him was happiness. He really – he really was just _happy_ to get to tell me. And I made him think he couldn’t say it. I made him _miserable_.”

“But then this deal…”

“I know.”

Neither spoke for a few moments. Dean had been getting better at picking up sign language lately – Sam wondered if Eileen was being as quiet as it sounded.

“I just stood there.” Dean’s voice sounded wrecked, destroyed. “It was all I could do – I was just there to watch. He pushed me away and it took him. And I never got to…”

“Do you think you would have said it?”

“I should have. But Cas -” Dean’s voice was slowly getting stronger, but still not certain. “Cas deserved to hear me say it. But he deserved better than picking me.”

“He didn’t think so.”

From his position in the corridor, Sam couldn’t be sure if the sound his brother made next was a laugh or a sob. “Yeah, well he wasn’t always known for making smart decisions.”

“I don’t think love should be smart.”

“Maybe.” Dean heaved in a breath. “Thanks. Sorry. Don’t wanna put you off staying over here more often. Shouldn’t have to play couch therapy to all your boyfriend’s broken relatives.”

“There’s not exactly many of you to worry about. And you are famously a package deal. This isn’t a shock.”

“Ha.”

Hearing the scrape of a chair on the floor, Sam froze and prepared for a hasty retreat.

“- I liked Castiel,” Sam heard Eileen say as he started to move away. “For what it’s worth, I think he seemed like he made good judgments.”

*


	3. Chapter 3

Sam woke up to Eileen smiling down at him.

“You know you drool when you sleep?”

Sam wiped over his mouth roughly and sat himself up. “Well, I know now. You sleep well?”

Her face twisted up into a fond smile. “…you noticed I got up.”

“I did.”

“Did you follow me?”

At Sam’s pointed silence, Eileen grinned. “Well, don’t tell Dean, I guess. You were right – they really did love each other.”

Sam raked a hand back through his hair, thinking for a moment. “I know I said it, but… I didn’t think Dean would talk about it. I didn’t think he _knew_.”

Eileen shrugged. “He’s more self-aware than you give him credit for.”

“I guess. I just wish he’d talk to me.”

“You can’t… can’t bring Cas back, can you?”

Sam sighed. “…I’m not sure. But I might try…” he trailed off thinking. “You think you could keep Dean busy for a bit today?”

This was breaking out of what was ok for a casual just-passing-through thing, but Eileen smiled. A package deal she’d called them last night. Yeah, she knew what she’d been getting herself into, even if they weren’t talking it through yet.

“He did offer to show me this gun range of yours. I think he could be a challenge.”

“Hmm. Don’t let him hustle you.”

She poked him square in the chest. “And don’t _you_ underestimate me.”

Carefully, he pulled her closer, stroking the loose strands of her hair back behind her ears. “I wouldn’t dare.”

*

It had been a long time since Sam had been in a church with the intention of actually praying there. Jack was everywhere, in everything, but still, it felt correct and respectful to find a place made for it to try and talk to him. And there was something joyous in knowing there really was someone out there worth praying to.

“Hey Jack,” Sam said quietly. The place was nearly empty and there was no one nearby. He would say this aloud. “We miss you.” Huh, that didn’t sound right. Maybe Sam should have practiced this before…

“Hello Sam,” Jack said, suddenly sitting beside him like he’d been there the whole time. And maybe he had been.

“Jack,” Sam grinned and did what he’d been wishing he’d done when Jack had disappeared on them, and threw his arms around him. It probably wasn’t cool anymore, to crush god in a hug, but Sam hadn’t had a normal relationship with faith in a much longer than time than he’d last been in a church.

“How is everything? Heaven? The angels?”

“I’ve been there - a little,” Jack said, smiling almost shyly. “I’ve been trying to increase their numbers – the right way, this time, I think. Heaven’s better. I’ve… I’ve been speaking with Mary a lot. She… she wanted me to say hello.”

“Did uh,” Sam cleared his throat. “Did Dean really go there, when he, uh…”

“When he died again?” Jack’s smile widened. “I feel like I probably shouldn’t tell you that. But we are trying to change a lot there.”

“But _we_ isn’t… isn’t Cas is it?”

Jack’s face fell. “No. And I know what you want to ask, Sam,” he went on before Sam could say anything. “I have been trying to get him back. Because I should be okay, I shouldn’t have to need him back, but -” Jack looked away, finally losing that godlike serenity. He might be the most powerful thing in the universe but he was also only a few years old and learning how to grieve.

“I didn’t want to tell Dean what I was thinking – not unless it was worth trying. Is it?”

Scowl deepening, Jack shook his head and looked ahead at the altar. “I don’t know. And I should know. Chuck brought Lucifer back out, and I still don’t know _how_.”

“It’s alright -”

“But, it’s _not,_ because I’m supposed to _fix_ things, and I’m also not supposed to be making the selfish choices that Chuck did, but we _know_ that’s what I’m doing here.”

“You’re nothing like him.” Sam patted Jack’s shoulder. “You know that.”

Jack breathed out slowly. “Yeah, I do. Just like I knew that you’d try and make me feel better if I freaked out for a second.”

“Everyone does that. Is it working?”

Jack didn’t look up but Sam was relieved to see him start to smile. “A little.”

*

Sam knew they had to have the dog with them, wherever they were, since he wasn’t instantly greeted with a little excitable ball of white fluff when he reached the bottom of the staircase. It was uncanny, really. The bunker was huge, but Miracle could be on the other end of it and on an entirely different floor and still know exactly when the front door had been opened. Sam caught himself wondering occasionally if Jack hadn’t got them a magic dog of some kind, but then Miracle would beg for a walk exactly like a regular dog and Sam forgot to be suspicious.

She was in the kitchen, but hopes of food didn’t seem to be the only reason for her distraction. Dean had put some kind of soup on the stove – and it had to be Dean, since Eileen didn’t like cooking anything that didn’t involve a microwave – and Miracle was sitting between Dean and Eileen, who was being coaxed into petting her.

“…I used to like dogs, before.”

“It’s okay if it takes you some time. But don’t take any shit from this one. You ask her to stay – if you don’t want her jumping up at you – she’ll listen.”

“It does help that she’s small.”

Smiling, Sam knocked on the door frame, getting at least Dean’s attention, who promptly nudged Eileen.

For a moment, Sam caught himself thinking of the wrong future Chuck had tried to frighten him with, before it all went wrong. Cas should be in the picture, and it wasn’t right that he wasn’t.

“Hey – you get the laundry detergent while you were out?”

“…no.”

“Dick.”

Taking a few steps down, Sam thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He almost didn’t want to ruin the mood. “I spoke to Jack.”

Eileen bit down on her lip as Dean raised an eyebrow. “And he spoke back?”

Sam nodded, and took his hands back out, remembering to try and sign what he could. “I think there’s something we could try – to get Cas back.”

Taking his hand off the dog, Dean sat back on his heels, face shutting down. “Sam…”

“We can do this, Dean. And we should. Don’t we owe him?”

Dean looked down, but Sam caught the way his lower lip quivered as he got to his feet. “And it wouldn’t… wouldn’t break anything?”

Sam recognised the tone behind his brother’s voice, that disbelieving _I can have this?_ that Sam felt every morning he woke up to Eileen, somehow alive and in his bed, already awake and smiling at him.

“We can do this, Dean,” Sam said, with a lot more confidence than he knew his tentative plan deserved. “We can get him back.”

*


End file.
